CCSF turns tables - accreditors under scrutiny

Accreditors under scrutiny after union files complaint

Updated 11:19 am, Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle

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Alisa Messer, president of the AFT Local 2121, addresses the CCSF board after the state's Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team, gave its recommendations to the board at a meeting at CCSF. The team put together to look into the financial crisis at City College of San Francisco delivered its findings to the CCSF Board of Trustees at City College in San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday, September 18, 2012.

Alisa Messer, president of the AFT Local 2121, addresses the CCSF board after the state's Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team, gave its recommendations to the board at a meeting at CCSF. The team put

If City College of San Francisco's faculty union hoped to stir trouble for the accrediting commission that has been breathing down the school's neck for a year with threats of closure, it has succeeded.

With two weeks left before the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges reveals its judgment on City College, the U.S. Department of Education is scrutinizing the commission's own way of doing business.

That's due to a nearly 300-page complaint about the commission from the California Federation of Teachers, and nearly 900 pages of supporting documentation. It alleges conflicts of interest and says the commission skirted its own rules last year when it ordered City College to transform itself or lose accreditation, a fatal matter.

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The commission received the complaint, investigated itself, and dismissed the allegations in seven quick pages.

The U.S. Department of Education had a different take, ordering a "full and documented response" from the commission by July 8.

"The concerns of the California Federation of Teachers about the commission are taken seriously," Kay Gilcher, the Education Department's accreditation director, wrote to the commission's president, Barbara Beno, this month.

Accused of crossing line

In its complaint, the union accuses the commission of overstepping standards required of the nation's six regional accrediting commissions - all quasi-private, nonprofit agencies overseen by the U.S. Department of Education.

The faculty say that California's accrediting commission is overly harsh with all schools, but crossed the line when it issued its most severe sanction on City College without first imposing lesser penalties.

The complaint accuses the commission of conflicts of interest, including allowing Laney College dean Peter Crabtree, President Beno's husband, to serve on the team that evaluated City College last year.

It also calls the commission too secretive - an image the commission did not dispel on June 7 when it barred dozens of people from the public portion of its meeting in Burlingame.

In the Education Department's letter, Gilcher told Beno to take that meeting into account in her response.

The feds' stern attitude gratifies the statewide faculty union and its City College affiliate, Local 2121, which jointly filed the complaint on April 30 - and a second one this month about the commission's breezy dismissal of its case.

"We're quite encouraged to see the Department of Education taking the complaint seriously," said Alisa Messer, president of Local 2121.

The faculty union has been anything but complacent since the accrediting commission in Novato put the squeeze on City College in July.

Authority questioned

While the college has worked to address numerous deficiencies and violations of accrediting standards flagged by the commission - such as having too few qualified administrators and poor financial planning for the college of 85,000 students - the union has protested the commission's authority to require such an overhaul in the first place.

It's meant cuts in pay and benefits for faculty, who are still in bitter labor negotiations with the college.

Now, Messer said, "We hope this brings forward some significant changes in terms of how the commission is run."

What those could be are unclear. But the accrediting commission will undergo its five-year review from the Education Department this fall, and it's possible that issues raised in the faculty's complaint could be taken up in a more formal way at that time.

The accrediting commission consists of 19 voting members, mostly college chancellors, faculty and education experts, and is supported with dues from member colleges.

On May 30, the commission said its own investigation had found nothing to substantiate the faculty's complaints.

Commission reviews itself

The commission found that it had been consistent in following its rules, did not engage in conflicts of interest, and did not spring any surprises on City College.

"Beginning in 2006, the Commission provided extensive professional advice and support to City College to help it come into compliance," according to the report posted on the commission's website. The report makes no apologies for not investigating many of the allegations. In fact, the report suggests that any they skipped were invalid on the face of it, partly because they came from a labor union:

"It is fair to conclude that these allegations are not reflective of the views, official or otherwise, of City College," the report says.

Its most detailed reply concerns whether it was a conflict for Beno's husband to have participated in the review of City College.

'Ordinary response'

"To suggest that the views of any one member of an evaluation team ... could have so influenced and prejudiced the views of the other 16 members and somehow led all of those other members to prepare an unfair and biased report against City College lacks credibility," the report concludes.

Meanwhile, the commission's staff said they weren't worried about being required to fully address the faculty union's concerns.

"This is an ordinary response from the U.S. Department of Education when it receives a complaint," said Krista Johns, the commission's vice president for policy and research. "Their procedure involves taking every complaint seriously.

"And it's part of our regular process to provide them with the information they seek."